Posts by Rod P

22

my life growing up as a JW

by moanzy in

just want to share my experience growing up through this organization.

all but one sister are jw.

my other sister was molested by other people who were at the time witnesses.

Rod P

Hi Moanzy,

What a nice surprise. I didn't know you started your own thread. Just discovered it now.

It took a lot of courage for you to tell your story. Good on ya'. And keep that chin up; you're doing great!

Love,

You know who!

21

Resurrection to Spirit Form, Your Opinion would be Appreciated,

by jeanniebeanz in

2 corinthians 5:6-8 seems to indicate that, according to traditional christian thinking, once a christian dies they are immediately present with the christ.. .

2 corinthians 5:6-8 (kjv).

6. therefore [we are] always confident, and know that while present in the body we are absent from the lord, 7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight;) 8 we are confident, i say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the lord.. .

Rod P

Hi Narkissos,

I know this is Jeaniebeanz' thread, but I just have to reply to your comments.

The Bible is a collection of "little books" but they are not just any old books selected from random. They were put together with certain purposes in mind, one of which is to try to show that there is a thread of divine harmony and purpose implicit in the affairs of mankind; that there is a God of the Universe that is manifest in man's history. Another one includes moral code and direction for behavior and treatment of ones fellow man. There are also overriding themes such as the fall of man producing sin and death, which then leads to the need for a Saviour, a Messiah, as sinful, imperfect man cannot save himself. There is prophesy sprinkled from one end of the Bible to the other. Life after death, or the eternal destiny of mankind is an important topic that is also dealt with in many place in the Bible, and, of course, that leads us into topics like the Soul or Hell(fire), the Nature of God, the Trinity concept/doctrine. There is a whole tapestry of concepts that are interwoven together, and they can get rather complex, to say the least. Still, we try to blend and present them together as a kind of unified and harmonious whole. This is the story of Religion, and it should be no surprise that there is no universal agreement amongst them.

We can choose to believe or to not believe. We can dismiss it all as hogwash, myth and superstition, or we can pursue it with a view that perhaps there is something to it, and see where that leads to. Many start out with the latter and end up with the former. Others experience it in reverse. So yes, it does come down to individual choices and beliefs, and who is to prove in absolute terms who is right and who is wrong?

When I was a JW knocking on doors, I met some very interesting people with some very diverse religious backgrounds. I learned an awful lot from each of them, which also exposed a lot of chinks in the JW doctrines and interpretations. This led me to the conviction that the "Bible only" theory cannot be used as a basis for faith. In other words, the Bible was quite capable of different interpretations, depending on who you talked to, given the level of scholarship and intellect involved. Give two people one primary topic to discuss from the Bible, then give them six months to thoroughly research that topic, then get them in a room to debate the topic. The odds are, they will probably stale-mate, because each one has their own belief system, and so will tend to argue from the perspective of their own pre-conceived notions (i.e. the teachings of their religious affiliation). And even if one managed to change the other one's mind, what does that prove. It only proves that one had the better debate and interpretive skills, and so they could both be wrong together. It is a virtual impossible task to "prove all truth" from the Bible precisely because of the problem of Interpretation of Scripture. Therefore, something more than the Bible is needed. That became my spiritual pilgimage- to find the source or organization on earth that was inspired of God, or in other words, had the "authority" to speak in the name of God, who would be given the guidance and direction from God as to what was the truth and what wasn't. That led me to the question of the Catholic Church, who claimed Apostolic Succession from the time of Jesus until now. ("Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church"). But the Mormons say there was a great apostasy of the Church and by the Church, which was prophesied in the Bible that the end would not come until there was a falling away first. And so, the Priesthood Authority to act in the name of God was removed from the earth until the end times, and a young boy named Joseph Smith was supposedly visited by Divine Beings, including the angel Moroni, God the Father and Jesus Christ, as well as Peter, James and John, Moses and Aaron who laid hands on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and bestowed the keys of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods. Now the Authority to speak for God was back on the earth, and so now I thought I had found the basis for understanding the Bible as the Word of God ("insofar as it is translated correctly").....Except that, as time went on, and more and more historical facts came to light, it became pretty evident to me that this was a nice story, but in the final analysis, was a fabrication. This led me to leaving the Mormon Church, and so now I was stuck here on my own with the same dilemma I had years ago as a JW: How do you know exactly how to interpret the Bible in every instance on every topic. This then led me to an internal search, trying to find an inner spiritual connection with divinity, and to receive inspiration as best as I was capable of receiving. That is another story in itself. I just want to say for now that in the end, we will all end up having to stand on our own two feet, and face and struggle with these questions on our own. The best we can do is share our thoughts and discoveries with others, like is happening on this forum.

Now in spite of these limitations, I still like to study the Bible and compare texts and to try to glean certain "truths" from that collection. But instead of seeing it as though every jot and tittle, every word, every letter, is the very Word of God, I see the Bible as a useful tool (but not the only tool) from which to study spiritual concepts and questions. And even if you cannot produce a synthesis on all topics with all scriptures, I still am of the view that the exercise has value, and also that some scriptures do, in fact, trump others in terms of establishing certain "doctrines" (for lack of a better word). But at the same time, I am not interested in establishing some kind of dogma around Biblical passages aligned with certain paths of logic and reason, given that there may be different ways of looking at various passages. In some respects, this is not much different than studying Shakespeare, or Homer and the Illiad, etc. where people study and debate them endlessly, and over time, new insights can still be gleaned from them. It's as though "turth" has different levels, like the layers of an onion. Some individuals deal with the surface layer, while others peel them away and penetrate deeper levels of understanding, and so on. That is why I will not spend my life pooh-poohing the Bible. There is still value there, just as there is in many other books, inspired or not.

You have mentioned spiritual, bodily, partial and general resurrections that are all contained in the Bible. But these are not necessarily contradictory. Some may be aspects of a broader topic, some may be literal, some may be symbolical or analagous. They are all worth exploring, and they do not have to used as grist for the mill of biblical criticism and skepticism. To each their own. Maybe the Bible is like a giant software program, say a word processing one, where anyone can turn it on and use it or play with it and see what they come up with. Everyone's document produced from that program would end up different or unique in some way or another, but no-one would suggest that it is a useless exercise. It is a tool that is meant to explore to see what one can discover!

Regards,

Rod P.

21

Resurrection to Spirit Form, Your Opinion would be Appreciated,

by jeanniebeanz in

2 corinthians 5:6-8 seems to indicate that, according to traditional christian thinking, once a christian dies they are immediately present with the christ.. .

2 corinthians 5:6-8 (kjv).

6. therefore [we are] always confident, and know that while present in the body we are absent from the lord, 7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight;) 8 we are confident, i say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the lord.. .

Rod P

Jeanniebeanz,

Please understand what I am trying to say. I was in no way suggesting that the Bible itself contained a "red herring" that would lead us to a false conclusion regarding the soul.

The thrust of my argument is that the WBTS is using all these scriptures (i.e. the many thousands of them) and applying them in a way that says "This is what the Bible teaches us respecting the meaning or definition of the soul, and what happens when we die." "All this stuff" means the kind of stuff the WBTS has been using as "proof" for their version of the doctrine of the Soul. In other words, I am suggesting they have handed us a "red herring" by way of misapplying or wrongly interpreting these scriptures as being relevant as to what the Bible teaches on the doctrine of the Soul. In so doing, they have been wrongly progagating the false notion that the Bible teaches that when we die, there is no continuity of existence after physical death. They teach that after the resurrection certain people will be brought back to life, or back into existence, but, in fact, it is merely God implanting His perfect memory of who and what you were while you lived on this earth. That is their rationale for how this works, since they have already concluded that when you are dead you are no longer in existence. They have boxed themselves into a corner by their own interpretations, so to speak, and so that is the only possible explanation open to them. It is a bit like drawing one's own conclusions at the start, and then back-tracking, and all along the way you have to force interpretations to make them fit the conclusion you came to earlier.

In order to understand what the Bible really teaches about the Soul and the Spirit, and life after death, etc. we must go to the right scriptures, the relevant ones, and then we can begin to understand the truth that is in the Bible. There are some very powerful and enlightening ones that show that we do live on after death, and the WBTS has to try very hard to rationalize away what certain scriptures say in order to make them fit their own pre-conceived notions and conclusions that they sold themselves on so long ago, starting with Charles Taze Russell. His approach was to use a Bible Concordance, and lined all these scriptures up, and then said "Look, here is what the Bible teaches about the Soul Doctrine." But there was a lot of background information that he did not have in his possession, nor was he an expert in Hebrew and Greek, and so he led himself down a wrong path to the wrong conclusion. And the WBTS has been perpetuating this version of the Soul Doctrine ever since. The simple truth is, they have been wrong from the start.

Rod P.

21

Resurrection to Spirit Form, Your Opinion would be Appreciated,

by jeanniebeanz in

2 corinthians 5:6-8 seems to indicate that, according to traditional christian thinking, once a christian dies they are immediately present with the christ.. .

2 corinthians 5:6-8 (kjv).

6. therefore [we are] always confident, and know that while present in the body we are absent from the lord, 7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight;) 8 we are confident, i say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the lord.. .

Rod P

Will get back on the topic of 2 Corinthians 5:6-8.

In the meantime, some thoughts on life after death.

JW's teach that when you die, you are dead, or you go out of existence. Your body, which is of the "dust of the earth" goes back to the earth from whence it came. The "spirit" or "breath of life" or "life force" goes back to the God who gave it. The WTBS teaches that what also goes back to Jehovah is His Perfect Memory of YOU, all that was you, all that you lived, everything that you did while alive. Then, in the resurrection, a new body is raied up, and Jehovah God implants that perfect "Memory" that was You into that new body. Then, for all intents and purposes, they say that this is YOU like when you were alive.

This is not logical. The JW version of life after death thru the resurrection has some fatal flaws. If YOU go out of existence at the time of death, and all there is left is God's memory of you, and then that memory is put back into a new body at the time of resurrection, then what God would have done is made a duplicate of YOU, a clone of YOU. This is NOT YOU, just an imitation of the real thing, albeit a pretty good one, since God is perfect, right? So now, if when you die you go out of existence, and God later makes a duplicate of you, then why should you care if that CLONE of YOU makes it into the New World?

There are over 6,000 passages in the Bible which use the words "Soul" and "Spirit" (psyche, ruah, pneuma, nephesh). The WBTS teaches that these references have doctrinal implications as to the nature of the soul, and that is the source of the problem. The simple truth is, these passages have nothing to do with a true definition of the soul or spirit, and do not tell us as to what happens after we die. They are not doctrinal passages, but rather simple statements that man, the living soul, dies, sins, gets hungry, can be captured, and myriads of other human circumstances, many of which also befall the beasts. "Man has no preeminence over the beast; as one dies, so dies the other." etc. "The soul that sins shall die". This is all a "red herring" and leads us down a false trail as to what the Bible really teaches about death and life after death. Bible scholars are very aware of all this, and is why they do not accept the JW version of their doctrine of the Soul. Therefore, we need to get on with the business of finding out what the Bible really teaches about death and dieing and life after death, and forget about the 6,000+ irrelevant passages.

Having said this, I will get back to you on 2 Cor.5:6-8 and a few other thoughts on this whole subject of life after death.

Rod P.

74

Gumbys Sunday School Sermon - Handicapped People

by gumby in

good morning fellow servants of the lord, and welcome!

lets all stand and sing song number #666 "our merciful god" .

*passes really big collection plate* .

Rod P

I meant to tell you, Gumby, this is one time I have to agree with you!

However, this does not mean I have to agree with you on everything else you say along the way.

I'm just going to sit in the back of the pews and help keep you on your toes, and not get too far out of line with some of your wild and radical ideas.

So far so good.

Rod P.

74

Gumbys Sunday School Sermon - Handicapped People

by gumby in

good morning fellow servants of the lord, and welcome!

lets all stand and sing song number #666 "our merciful god" .

*passes really big collection plate* .

Rod P

Hey there Rev. Gumby!

I liked your sermon this time, way better than that one on Noah. But then, I suppose you are just starting to get used to your new calling in life.

Now that the Lord is on your side, why don't you talk to the Lord and have one of those good ol' healing sessions. Then you can restore everyone back to good health, and then everyone will be back at full service once again.

Work smarter, not harder!

Regards,

Rod P.

179

I found a big ol' fat lie again in there!

by gumby in

some big fat liar made sumthin up again!

looky here what i went and found in the bible!

remember that little dove that desended down on jesus right after he was baptised by john?

Rod P

Gumby,

Paul could have at least talked to the Mormons in his area who could have traced Jesus linage history and connected him to real people for proof..........sheeesh!

So what are you getting at now, Gumby? Are you telling me that the geneologies of Joseph and Mary as contained in the Gospels are all made up fictional characters too?

I can't wait to see the day when Jesus Christ meets you on your way to L.A. and asks you "Gumby, Gumby, wherefore art thou persecuting me so much?" Maybe you would turn into one of the greatest preachers of the 21st century. Then I would have the last laugh, telling everyone how you made up your new religion with this miracle story of yours.

By the way Reverend Gumby, I enjoyed your sermon on the Noah story. However, I was a little light on your contribution box. Catch you next time.

to Narkissos:

I would be the first one to recognize the limitations of the wheel analogy. When I said that all paths lead to the centre of the wheel, I was not suggesting what one would find when you arrived at the "Centre". In fact, we are not really "arriving" anywhere. Perhaps it is all a Void in the final analysis.

I took a little tour of Tao te King, as its been a while since I looked at it. Here are a few excerpts (from one translation):

1 Darkness within darkness. The gate of all mystery. (Referring to the Tao)

4 The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used but never filled.

5 Hold fast to the center.

11 Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub, It is the center hole that makes it useful.

16 Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.

21 The Tao is elusive and intangible.

Oh, it is intangible and elusive, and yet within is image.

Oh, it is elusive and intangible, and yet within is form.

Oh, it is dim and dark, and yet within is essence.

32 Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.

32 Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion (re: Bultman)

Rod P.

179

I found a big ol' fat lie again in there!

by gumby in

some big fat liar made sumthin up again!

looky here what i went and found in the bible!

remember that little dove that desended down on jesus right after he was baptised by john?

Rod P

Hello Gumby, Hello Narkissos,

It's been a busy week, but anyway, here goes.

It is clear that I have a long road ahead of me when it comes to Gnostic manuscripts and literature, and that therefore, it would be foolishness on my part to draw any firm conclusions one way or the other at the present time.

Having said that, here are some things I have come to accept:

1) There is, without question, a strong connection between quite a number of Egyptian religious concepts and pagan themes as well as a significant number of scriptural passages in the Old and New Testaments that parallel, and even borrow from, the Egyptian. They are quite striking, and the implications for the Bible are very serious and consequential, in my view. I shall be elaborating on this along the way, because there is so much to cover.

2) There is, in fact, a scarcity of information when it comes to accounts about the life of Jesus, other than what is found in the New Testament. There are literally thousands of N.T.manuscripts and fragments of texts in evidence, which show a remarkable comparative consistency, but this does not necessarily support or establish "the existence of extra-biblical accounts" that one would expect to find in circulation.

3) There was a problem between James in Jerusalem and Paul, the preacher to the Hellenist Gentiles. The brethren in Jerusalem were quite partial to Judaism, so that while they accepted Jesus, they still wanted to practise and perpetuate all of the requirements of Judaism. Paul, on the other hand, was arguing that such things were no longer necessary because Jesus Christ had fulfilled the law, and so his Gentile converts should not be required to participate in Judaistic requirements, such as circumcision. It also looks to me that Paul was considered as a kind of "Outsider" in the eyes of his Jewish brethren. Maybe they were happy he was spending almost all of his time with his Gentile Churches and missionary travels, away and out of their hair.

If Jesus Christ was really real, then we would have to interpret matters with respect to James and Paul quite differently than if Jesus Christ was simply some made up myth from a later age. If the latter is true, then I would take your point, Narkissos, that Paul may have just developed his version of the story of that Galilean rabbi who was crucifed a few decades ago. Of course, he then had to invent the story of his own miraculous encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, to authenticate his own "Apostleship". I know a few guys today who have tried to start their own religion, and they need a good platform and story to get it started. So was Paul one of these? On the other hand, if this was a story Paul made up, you have also raised the question of whether it might be a "Jewish version of the Hellenistic mystery cults, such as Osiris or Attis", given the amount of "cultic material" that is there. Regardless of which version might be true, it still all depends if Jesus Christ was a real, historical person or not. So....it seems to me that the crux of the matter lies in proving or disproving the existence of Jesus Christ. If he is real, then that changes everything, right? And if it is proven, and I mean PROVEN, that he is a mythical character, then anything goes, and we all ought to have a field day figuring out which is the best explanation in history as to how this whole thing began and evolved down thru the centuries.

On the question of what kind of priority James gave "his relationship to Judaism" vis-a-vis his relationship with Paul's Gentile converts, again, I think this would depend on whether or not Jesus Christ was a real historical person or not. If Jesus was real, then James would have had real live experiences with him, a real relationship with him while he was alive. Then it would be clear that James had accepted him as the Messiah, and so Christianity would have been the priority, albeit in a Judaistic context. It may then have been that he, and the other brethren in Jerusalem had to learn a lesson about the message of Christianity being for the whole world, and not just "God's Chosen People". The New Covenant may have necessitated a new way to look at the Law of Moses, and so they had to make some adjustments to the new situation, since in Christ, the Law had all been fulfilled. On the other hand, if Jesus was NOT a real historical person, then one must look at James in a different light, as steeped in Judaism, and that was all there was to it. In that case, no wonder James and Paul would never get along. And so on.

The real question, then, at least in my mind, is "Was Jesus Christ a real person, an authentic historical personage, and was he who he claimed to be - the Saviour of Mankind?" There is no middle ground on this one.

Notwithstanding the above, and there is much more than this, I am not sold on the notion that Jesus was not an hjistorical person. This has a lot to do with the fact that there is a great debate going on in the higher halls of academia these past several years, in which many different scholars are lined up on both sides of the question. And so, this is one area where I am going to try to suspend judgment until I reach a greater level of knowledge and insight on this whole matter.

To illustrate why I need to give more time to this question (as well as many of the challenges and questions the Gnostic writers also raise in this area):

I have been examining some of the claims of S.Acharya in her book "The Christ Conspiracy, the Greatest Story Ever Sold" (And yes, I know about her later publications, which I also need to review). On her claims respecting the influence of astrology on Judaism, there are some compelling questions as to her accuracy in dating, origin of the zodiac, identification of which constellations were regarded as part of the zodiacal group, and what was known or believed during what time period, etc., etc. She has no problem getting back-up quotes to her assertions from modern authors of like mind. However, when her statements are subjected to review by competent scholars in ancient astronomy and astrology, that's when a lot of errors, inaccuracies and omissions become exposed.

When Achara said that the Christian fish was a symbol of the "coming of the age of Pisces" this has no basis in antiquity because in those days no significance was attached to the idea of the location of the vernal equinox in any particular constellation of the fixed stars. This was simply a modern notion, which most certainly does not go back 2000 years.

On the question of Judaism being essentially "moon worship", there is apparently a problem of little or no surviving Judaistic literature to support this. There are all kinds of volumes of ancient near eastern texts that refer to powerful moon-goddesses in pagan cultures. There are also certain cultures within Judaism that were tainted by pagan influence. This, however, in no way proves that Judaism originated from moon-worship.

In Talmudic literature the moon is supposed to be the emblem of Israel. Again, the problem is that the Talmud belongs to the 2nd Century A.D. and later, so really provides no proof or corroboration with respect to the 1st Century and earlier. It is true that some of the Talmudic data originated in the 1st Century, however the author did not demonstrate that moon-worship belongs to that earlier class of literature.

In short, her work is interesting, but suspect. And I do not presently possess sufficient scholastic competence on this whole subject to be in a position to judge for or against her positions or claims. And she has hundreds and hundreds of them, and she is but one author.

For me to evaluate all this stuff, I would have to spend years getting into history and the sciences, ancient texts, translations, read all of the materials from the whole of the scholarly world. I would have to discover who are the credible authorities and who are the mavericks and the weirdos peddling their pet theories and hidden agendas. And even then, I would probaby need to get out there amongst the ruins and get my hands dirty. I would be up against many writers and researchers who have spent their whole lives devoted to these subjects. So to sit here in judgment on any one of their works at the present time would be ludicrous. And furthermore, for me to take a firm position one way or the other (i.e. skeptic or believer), and then tyr to convert other to it, would be tantmount to starting my own religion with a kind of fixed "world view". I am not about to do that!

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You know, the more I look at this Discussion Forum and the thousands of threads it contains, I can't help but notice a few things. It reminds me of when I was sitting in a restaurant one Sunday morning, looking out of the second story window from the incredibly beautiful and picturesque English Bay in downtown West-End Vancouver, British Columbia.

Off in the distance I saw about ten giant ocean-going vessels anchored in the water, each one of them from a different country, with various ethnic crews on board, and each one with their own story, their own history, their own perspective.

Looking closer towards shore, I saw smaller boats and yachts, some leaving to go fishing or whale watching or exploring, while others were returning home to dock. Still closer, there were a couple of kayakers paddling parallel to shore, while others were wind-surfing randomly in the waters, standing on their platforms, trying to control their wind-filled sails under the watchful eye of their instructor.

Some people were swimming and wading in an area marked off with ropes and buoys, with a lifeguard surveying the crowd from his very tall chair.

Right at the shoreline children were walking around in the wet sands, looking for clams and pretty rocks and sea shells. Adults were sunning themselves along the beach, some seated up against giant logs laying in the sand, while others were stretched out on beach towels, reading novels or catching a little shut-eye. And in the midst of this scene, here were two guys with metal detectors, walking along the sand trying to find buried coins or anything of value.

Still closer, I saw the immaculately groomed lawns, shaded by beautiful trees, and sprinkled strategically with lovely flowers and shrubs. The border between the grass and the sand was divided by a giant walkway, along which people moved in both directions on bicycles or roller blades, while others simply walked or jogged. Along the edge were artists painting their scenes on canvass, while displaying their past artwork for sale to passers-by.

And in the midst of it all, walking across the grass and the sand, I saw a mother duck leading her babies into the ocean in single column formation.

This was a feast for the eyes! Wheels within wheels, and worlds within worlds. Such amazing diversity; yet all was contained within a marvelous unity. It was all happening simultaneously on a common turf, which was but a small dot on this planet we call Earth.

Suddenly I saw the streets below, with traffic and lights, and commercial establishments that looked like boxes sitting side by side along an endless line of cement sidewalks and ashphalt roads. In the room I could hear the waiters and waitresses taking orders above the buzz of Sunday brunch conversation pervading the atmosphere. It was a wake-up call to leave the vision, and snap back into the "reality" that man himself had created.

But now, thinking about all that, I couldn't help but notice the overriding unity of life amidst an infinite diversity. We are all these little blobs of consciousness interacting with the Web of Life, in which we are like little rocks being dropped into a still pond, creating waves radiating outward in all directions. Drop two pebbles into the pond at the same time, and we will see two sets of radiating waves, which go out across the water, and then merge into each other. As these waves collide, they create intersecting points that become "standing waves" that stand out from the other waves, which then creates their own peculiar patterns and influences. This is analogous to life interacting with life, with each of our waveforms affecting every other waveform within the fabric of space, time and consciousness. Everything affects everything else; nothing and no-one is separate. We are only aware of this or unaware of this.

I think about all the debates and opposing viewpoints on this website. Aren't we all reaching out to one another, interacting with each other, using our own version or perspective of the "Truth"? And each of our "Truths", in all their infinite forms and variations, could be represented as different points along a giant wheel, all of which are connected by spokes around that wheel, which all lead to the Centre, the Hub, the Source, which holds everything together. The Spokes represent the different pathways we are all on as we seek to find the Centre, the Source, the Whole. Truths, and even Lies, Myths and Illusions, are all integrally connected to the spokes on that wheel, and in the end, they serve as instruments to awaken us to higher realizations and levels of Truth, that ultimately bring us closer to the Source.

Life is a giant conundrum wrapped up in an enigma, surrounded by a paradox. Life is not about all our debates and questions to find the answers. The answer is "There are no answers! It's all about the Search!" That is what matters.

Take three men who are blindfolded. Each one of them has a hold of a giant elephant, and then tries to describe it. This elephant represents the "Whole Truth". One man has a hold of the tail, and describes the elephant as being short, curly and hard. The second man has a hold of the leg, and describes the elephant as tall like a tree, and big and round. The third man has a hold of the elephant's ear, and describes it as flat and thin and big like a giant pancake........And we petty men pratt on about an elephant not one of us has seen. (Even the Atheist has but his hands on only a piece of the elephant.)

There is a story about a boy who grew into a man and then left home, searching for untold wealth. He was looking for diamonds, and he spent his whole life looking for those diamonds. In the end he returned home, tired, broke and disillusioned; and then he died. A short while later, someone was digging in what was the dead man's back yard. There they found one of the richest diamond deposits in the world. The lesson is, we all have our own "Acres of Diamonds" right here in our own back yards, in ourselves, just waiting to be discovered.

Here is a saying I will paraphrase: We shall never cease from searching. And in all our searching and exploring, we shall arrive back at where we started, knowing it for the first time.

A man once heard the statement "You are what you eat!" Then he asked "Why is that so?" He enrolled in several courses, including Cooking Classes, Nutrition and Biochemistry. After about six months, he found he was able to prove the notion that "You are what you eat!" but he had to use a very techinical vocabulary surrounding the chemistry of foods, food groups, food processing, nutritional elements like proteins, sugars, fats, carboydrates, starches, vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc.. After spending another couple of years on these subjects, he found he was able to synthesize all his technical information and jargon into a much reduced but succint explanation that confirmed the same truth "You are what you eat." He started out with a naive belief that "You are what you eat." and in the end, emerged with a much deeper understanding of that Truth. And so he concluded that "The Truth is Profoundly Simple, yet Simply Profound!" You can never come to an end of it or exhaust Truth. Thus becomes our Search!

Over the past couple hundred years, conventional medicine has taken the approach to disease and healing by way of examining pathogens- things that are "not normal" when compared with "the healthy human" or body part. They look at what is wrong in great detail and complexity, even microscopically, diagnose the condition, and then determine the appropirate remedy or treatment. The field of medicine became so vast and complex, no one person could learn it all, and so there emerged the age of specialitst we are now living in. These guys can be referred to as Allopaths, who hold that if you have enought detailed information about a patient and his condition, you can then treat him/her and restore that person back to health. On the other hand, there is a whole other type of medical practitioner that has been around for centuries. These take a "Holistic" approach to patient care and treatment. They look at a person as a "whole" (holistically), rather than worry about the tiny details. Nowadays we call this "Aleternative Medicine", and they include Chiropractors, Naturopaths, Ayurvidic Medicine, Herbologists, Acupuncturists, etc. There have been raging debates between the Allopathic and the Holistic approaches to treatment and cures, but both have their place.

In a way I see many of us becoming "Spiritual Allopaths". We sometimes get all bogged down in proofs and details, appealing to, and relying upon, texts and documents, history, science, archaeolody, paleontology, D.N.A., carbon dating, to supposedly "prove" our positions from an evidenciary perspective. Along the same lines, we tend to interpret scriptures from a much more literal perspective, rather than try to understand them for the symbolical, allegorical or mythological meanings they embody. On the other hand, I think we can play this "Spiritual Game" with a more Holistic approach, by focusing more on overall perspectives, and seeing and interpreting what we read as more symbolic, allegorical, mythological, etc. Allopaths prefer discrete ideas and doctirines, and facts and classifications and titles and comparisons and analysis, and are forever trying to break things down into smaller and smaller pieces. On the other hand, perhaps we should have more of a mind to try to see things as a whole, without labels and differentiations. Yet, this too can result in our concepts becoming highly symbolic and esoteric, even arcane, so as to make their true meaning obscure, and beyond the grasp of most people. We then have to ask the question "Of what use is that to anyone?" Sometimes we can be so "Spiritual" that we become no "Earthly Good".

At this point, I shall leave you with this thought to think about" "Trying to understand God is a bit like the amoeba staring up from the opposite end of the microscope, trying to understand the sex habits of the Scientist."

Rod P.

179

I found a big ol' fat lie again in there!

by gumby in

some big fat liar made sumthin up again!

looky here what i went and found in the bible!

remember that little dove that desended down on jesus right after he was baptised by john?

Rod P

I do apologize for not completing my post as yet. I am involved in accounting and income tax work, and we are in the middle of tax season. Things come up that throw all your plans and schedules out of whack. Anyway, I am determined to deliver on my promised post shortly, and will try to do so within a day or two.

Thanks for everyone's patience and understanding.

Rod P.

179

I found a big ol' fat lie again in there!

by gumby in

some big fat liar made sumthin up again!

looky here what i went and found in the bible!

remember that little dove that desended down on jesus right after he was baptised by john?

Rod P

Hello again,

I am very sorry, but something has come up which prevents me from posting today. Will try again tomorrow, but if can't, then it will have to be Monday evening.

Rod P.